I Sold my CD Player!!! Streaming sounds so incredible!!!

Never need to play those cd's again, and if you want to play them rip them to hard drive, play over streaming setup. I have well over 3K cd's that I ripped to NAS. And I'd bet on those rips played over your local network will sound better than played via your cd transport. I had Mark Levinson ML37 transport, much proprietary engineering with Phillips Pro drive. so no slouch and I preferred rips long ago with a previous far inferior streaming setup to what I have now. Also, cd rips are sometimes superior sound quality vs streams of same music, another plus.

In regard to artist's remuneration. The most popular artists do just fine between streaming royalties and concert dates. The obscure and/or unknown artists likely do better with streaming vs. hard copy. For one they get far more exposure via streaming vs. cd/vinyl, Vast majority of these artists won't get promoted by a record company and it requires resources to produce hard copy. Nope, these types of artists have been advantaged by streaming, I have literally thousands of releases on my fav and play lists  from artists I'd not even be aware of if only hard copy available. I have well over 3k cd's and that much or more vinyl, and the vast, vast majority of it is well known artists from the past. When I was purchasing hard copy there were enough past artists and contemporary artists I was familiar with to empty my pockets of money set aside for music purchases.

Now, I might agree that mid level artists may suffer streaming vs. hard copy. These artists may have profited more from hard copy vs. streaming, assuming streaming not available. Still, does the greater exposure that comes from streaming add up to more listens which means greater remuneration, and perhaps a greater chance of prolonging a career.

I'm a boomer, totally believe this is the golden age of music, I can now afford complete output of my favorite artists, and I get much more exposure to new music and artists!

Think about the average size of vinyl and cd collections, I 'd say my 3k plus cd, 3k plus vinyl is up there. And so, I have this relatively large collection, think about how few artists have benefited from my purchases, and how little money I've spent relative to the entire output of recordings ever made! Now , tell me who was getting rich from back in the bad old days when record companies ruled who got signed and promoted.

Streaming radio station or Fm isn't best for discovering new artists. Between Qobuz and Tidal which I stream over Roon, nearly unlimited music, and Roon radio will play entire catalog of my ripped library, Tidal and Qobuz at random, also suggestions of similar artists when playing individual tracks or albums.

I don't get into sound quality arguments, all can be top notch, and I continue to have very nice vinyl setup, nothing beats having the art and packaging in a larger format. CD's blah for this, don't miss it.

The only thing I don't get is those who continue to exclusively use cd and/or  vinyl with small collections of both. Even with 6k to choose between both formats and virtually all genres I ended up in repeat mode, familiar with everything, no surprises. Finding new great music keeps it fresh!

One of the downsides to streaming mentioned, and that is sudden disappearance of recordings from streaming services. And it will be the exact same artist and album from both Tidal and Qobuz. I presume disputes with artists and/or record labels here? The funny thing is sometimes they reappear, either dispute settled or are these server glitches? So, one might consider purchasing the cd of the deleted recording, sorry that cd may no longer be available for purchase. Shazam, magical disappearing act.

Point is, yes, recordings disappear from streaming services, but physical media disappears as well. I fully expect production and distribution of cd's to continue to decline, in recent years I've observed two sites I previously purchased cd's from ceasing business. I expect both vinyl and cd's will continue with very limited releases available.

@wolf_garcia +1 I can agree that many artists receive too little compensation. But lets imagine a world without streaming where record companies control the marketing and promotion of artists they chose to work with. So, you're a beginning artist, who's going to market, promote, press hard copy for you! Nope, you better have big bucks behind you if you're independent of the record companies.

Don't delude yourself there was some golden age for artists in this country. Just last night I was listening to Randy Burns, acid folk artist from NYC from back in the 60's, in the vein of Pearls Before Swine, both on the legendary indie label ESP. These guys never made a buck, were hardly heard, sad, sad, sad. And I can say this about tons of both old and contemporary artists I've only found because of streaming. Did all those bebop jazz and blues musicians benefit from the old ways, nope. And how about all the musicians who couldn't even get signed to any label, they die and/or leave music without anyone other than a few close friends getting to hear their music.

I mostly despise  hard copy business model these days, how about the thousandth release of some Led Zeppelin, Bob Dylan or any of a hundred old artists, albums selling for high dollars. Just how much money do you think average consumers have to spend on music, their entire monthly budget could be used up on a single album.  The hard copy way of doing business is obsolete, only a few artists benefit at all.

Streaming  and live performance/marketing will be the only business model going forward for vast majority of artists. It will be up to artists and consumers which way it goes in regard to remuneration.

Well, business models have never favored vast majority of artists, musicians. Until the day comes they can leverage their art it will never happen.

I'm sure most popular artists would prefer a system where they and their record company could monopolize their hard copy. Again, I return to the more obscure artists who'd never have the resources to press, market and distribute their music to the vast public.

I'd also posit streaming is a more democratic system in regard to bringing far more music to the public than would exist otherwise. Keeping in mind some artists underpaid, greater affordability of music means poorer folks have access to music they may not have with previous business models.

I well remember the bad old days, when I was young and poor, saving up for the few albums I could afford, the others I desired had to be satisfied listening to radio. Vast majority of stations were tightly programmed, very limited playlists, even the free form FM stations genre specific. Jazz and classical limited to far end of dial, usually with weak signals. Think about how much better the youth have it today, I have budding audiophile nephews who because of exposure via streaming know some of those obscure artists I also enjoy. We also support these artists via attending concerts from time to time. We wouldn't even have heard of these artists without streaming.

in the final analysis its silly to argue about the utility of streaming as it pertains to the distribution and enjoyment of music. At issue is a cost/benefit analysis for artists via past and present business models.There is valid argument vast majority of artists have never been properly paid for their endeavors. I'd just like to know since when has capitalism been fair to vast swaths of the masses. Streaming is here to stay, its up to artists and consumers upset with present streaming models to create a new, fairer business model. Lacking that, artists and consumers have the free choice to contribute and/or consume their music via streaming. Some will boycott streaming, providing absolutely no help to the artists, use your energies coming up with new business model that benefits artists more greatly.

@irjones I run NAS in RAID configuration, so 2 HD with identical data, I have backup of these with USB external drive. Chances of three HD failures is virtually nill. And I still have my 3k plus cd's, not worth the hassle of selling and cd's don't take up that much room in any case.

And how come you couldn't transfer the HD in dead computer to new computer or at least to an external drive then to new computer? Unless it was infected with virus of OS in old HD corrupted this could work. Still, best to backup to external HD, I always go for at least 2 backups for the music files, ripping 3k plus cd's is time consuming!

Streaming sound quality extremely dependent on entire streaming chain. Stream sound quality should equal rip quality once you have streaming chain optimized.

As for recording quality, all over the place, this for both physical media and streams. Streams often have the advantage in that there's often multiple mastering/releases of same album, this becoming increasingly rare as cd sales decline. Streaming services have deep enough pockets to allow access to nearly every recording ever made, and its far simpler to transfer these recordings to streaming service. Physical media requires pressings and much more difficult distribution chain.